


worse than death

by eerian_sadow



Series: hurt-comfort bingo [6]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Branding, Burns, Gen, Permanent Injuries, limb amputation, severe injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 20:07:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5599165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Praxus falls, and one mech discovers that the dead received the most mercy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	worse than death

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2015 round of hurt/comfort bingo

When the Decepticons came to Praxus, they razed the city to the ground and offered a deal to the very few survivors: Join or die. It seemed like an easy choice on the surface--swear lip service to the murders of their friends and family (and possibly exact some sort of revenge) or join the dead on the piles of corpses.

Sheer terror and the number of dead or dying around him forced the answer out of Silverstreak’s lips when Megatron’s fusion cannon pointed at his face without any conscious thought. “I’ll join.”

The predator’s smile the warlord gave him in return sent the Praxian’s terror spiraling higher, and only the huge warframe behind him kept Silverstreak from bolting. “Good.”

He was led at gunpoint, as if he hadn’t just agreed to join the Decepticon ranks, to the transport that was taking the other “recruits” away from the city and shackled to the floor. Next to him, another mech wept.

No matter what anyone might have believed when they agreed to Megatron’s “deal,” there was no escape, and vengeance seemed equally unlikely.

 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

 

The transport was unloaded to screaming. It was a sound of pain and fear, high and piercing, that would have made his spark ache if there was any room left in it for anything but his own fear and sorrow.

As each mech was pulled off the unloading ramp, their designations and previous occupations were demanded by a mech larger than Megatron. Silverstreak gave his answer mechanically, the reality of his situation having sunk during the flight to Kaon.

He was little more than a slave to the whims of the “true” Decepticons.

“Follow line to the left,” he was instructed. Then the warrior forgot his existence to focus on the next slave being unloaded from transport.

Silverstreak went left as instructed. Even if he knew of anywhere to go, there was no chance he would escape with the number of warbuilds scattered throughout the landing bay. Like him, the mechs in front shuffled along with steps heavy with defeat.

 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

 

Their line wound its way down into the depths of the base the slaves had been flown to. Silverstreak wondered, briefly, if they would be forced to walk until they fell offline from exhaustion. Then he realized that would likely be an improvement over what was really going to happen to them.

When the line stopped in front of an unmarked door, he knew he was probably right. Idly, he considered bolting just so they would shoot him instead of whatever was coming next. 

Instead, he stood silently with a few others from his part of Praxus and waited. 

“Survive and remember,” One of the others whispered.

Remember? No, Silverstreak would rather reformat his entire memory core than remember what had happened to his home and family.

A moment later, one of their Decepticon overlords called his designation from the door. With a shiver, the Praxian entered the unmarked room.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

A simple medical exam and an update of his anti-viral programs later, Silverstreak was led off to another unmarked room. The lack of signs was discomforting, and he was beginning to think it had all been done on purpose to keep the less willing recruits off balance and unable to easily escape.

He gave the Decepticon leadership points for thinking ahead; he wouldn't have been able to get back to the landing bay if he was willing to try.

His escort stopped him in front of a Seeker with blue and red markings. “Kneel.”

“Yes, sir.” Silverstreak knelt down as quickly as he could, bowing his head for good measure. This particular Seeker was not Winglord Starscream, but he still recognized the mech from some of the news vids. Better to be respectful now than give him a reason to make his life harder than it had become that morning.

“Hold him,” The Seeker ordered his escort. “Don’t let him move his wings.”

“Aye, commander.” The Praxian forced himself not to flinch as his escort grabbed his shoulders and braced one of his wings against his chestplates. “Feel free to scream, scraplet. This is going to hurt.”

Silverstreak didn’t have a chance to think of a respectful way to ask what his escort meant. Blistering heat bit into his sensory wing a moment later, searing through plating and racing through his sensory network like molten plasma.

The Praxian screamed until his vocalizer shorted out.

And then the Seeker laid the brading iron against his other wing.

 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

 

When he woke in his cell the next morning, the only thing Silverstreak could feel was the ache of the burns on his wings. He couldn’t move, and his vocalizer still didn’t work.

One of his cellmates fed him and energon ration barely big enough to fuel a drone and the Praxian let his depression overwhelm him.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

“Scrape the infected plating off.” Between the pain and his inability to care anymore, Silverstreak barely heard the medic’s words. “We can re-armor him once the burns heal.”

“Yes, Hook.” Purple hands pulled him away from the senior medic, and the Praxian hoped briefly that the junior medic would botch the procedure and he would finally die.

A moment later, the bite of a syringe told him they had given him a liquid sedative. Before he fell into stasis, he felt a few blissful seconds of pain relief.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

When he woke again, he couldn’t feel his wings.

“They had to amputate them,” his cellmate told him sadly. “The infection settled in clear down to your sensor net.”

Silverstreak was blind and deaf without his wings, though he would find a way to adjust eventually. “They should have let me die.”

His cellmate laughed bitterly. “The Constructicons don’t grant mercy, even for a slave.”

“No. I suppose not.” For a moment, the Praxian wished for a return of the pain, just so he would know his wings were there still. He wondered if he would ever stop wishing for that.

But, like everything else from his life before the Decepticons, his wings didn’t matter anymore. He was nothing more than a slave.

“Silverstreak.” The Praxian and his cellmate both looked at the Decepticon standing on the other side of the energy barrier separating them from the relative freedom of Kaon. “Get up. It's time to replace your brand.”

“Put it over my spark this time,” he heard himself reply. “That way they can’t just cut it off if it becomes inconvenient again.”

His cellmate gasped in shock and the Decepticon began laughing. 

 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

 

He had hoped that the brand would burn out his feelings the way they had burned out the sensors in his wings, but as the metal melted through his chestplates he simply felt the same sorrow and depression he had felt from the moment he had been chained to the shuttle floor.

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, I needed a throwaway-but-still-canon Praxian character for a fic that I never did get around to finishing. In the course of researching that fic, my friend wicked3659 found a reference to a Decepticon version of Silverstreak. I’m taking him and running with it.


End file.
